Branded [Paperback]

Alissa Quart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003

Did you know you're being brainwashed? Corporations spend billions of dollars annually to woo teen and pre-teen consumers, but today's efforts to control young minds and wattles take marketing strategies to a dangerous new level. Alissa Quart's incisive expose takes the reader to the dark side of teen marketing, revealing an aggressive and disturbing world in which adults build careers out in insinuating themselves into 'friendships' with young people in order to monitor what they wear, eat, listen to, and talk about with each other. From the 20-somethings who walk the streets looking for 'teen cool' to the marketing teams behind the scenes in the corporate effort to 'sponsor' schools, Quart introduces us to the most threatening of these initiatives. This compelling book discovers how teens succumb to content commercial battering designed to reduce their individuality and creativity, the effects on targeted messages on emerging teen identities and how they are subtly taught to market to each other. But we also witness the bravery of isolated young people who fight back, turning the tables on the cocksure mega-corporations striving to crack the codes of 'teen cool'. These kids prove it isn't necessary to give in to branding, but its a drop in the ocean when an entire generation is being raised to consume.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For the readers still waiting for a substantive follow-up to Naomi Klein's No Logo, this is the book. Quart, a former media columnist for the Independent, follows the bread-crumb trail from the Fourth Annual Advertising and Promotion to Kids conference (no joke, unfortunately) to the mechanics of "peer-to-peer marketing," product placement in video games and the ever-escalating parties of the "bar mitzvah showcase." She hones in on teens' delicate self-fashioning and how it's manipulated for profit by adult "teen trendspotters" who insinuate themselves into the lives of "Influencer" teens in order to cop "youth buzz." Quart is brilliant on the world in which teens "obsessed with brand names feel they have a lack that only superbranding will cover over." She gets great quotes in her first-person encounters with her mostly female subjects, giving the book real voice. And Quart's analyses-of teen movies, SAT tutoring (to improve scores and pose college choices as brands), teen SUV ownership and the role of parents-are sharp and funny. Her exploration of how teens internalize and express market logic-through a process of "self-branding" that can include teen boob jobs and kid-produced anorexia Weblogs-is original and striking. The book lacks a broad cultural perspective: most interviewees are white, middle class and female, so it's difficult for Quart to generalize about how American teens and tweens as a whole use money and products to define themselves. Nevertheless, by the end, readers should be able to spot certain youth demographics and deconstruct their branded worlds instantaneously-and with empathy and anger.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Branded plumbs the depths of contemporary marketing to teens." -- Mother Jones March / April 2003

"A cogent wake-up call." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review 3/23/03

"A fascinating and provocative study of modern-day consumerism...effectively capture[s] the almost-arcane realities of modern-day teenage life." -- Bookpage March 2003

"An empowering work...a tough-minded call to arms." -- Boston Globe 2/16/03

"Deserves to command wide attention among millions of families...Quart makes a brilliant case." -- New York Times 1/26/03

"Quart makes a solid case that marketers have honed their approach to teens." -- Harvard Business Review February, 2003

"Quart seamlessly weaves within her cultural criticism and warnings an extremely insightful analysis of the transformation of youth social movements." -- The Nation 2/24/03

"Quart's style is smart and sassy...a frightening and important book." -- Women's Review of Books May 2003

"This is an extremely important topic for anyone interested in understanding the modern American teenager." -- The Seattle TimesMarch 09, 2003

"[A] very good book that parents should read...keenly raises your awareness...Quart's style is clean and well-paced. And it simmers." -- Winnipeg Free Press 3/2/03 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Arrow/Children S (a Division of Random House (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099458063
• ISBN-13: 978-0099458067
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,063,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #49 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Business & Investing > Marketing & Sales > Advertising

More About the Author

I am the author of "Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child," published by Penguin Press in 2006, and "Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers," published by Basic Books in 2003. I also write opinion pieces and book reviews for The New York Times and I've written for The New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly. I have a master's degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Brown University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Corporate pedophilia" and your children, February 23, 2003

By 

Malvin (Frederick, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Branded: The Buying And Selling Of Teenagers (Hardcover)

Alissa Quart's "Branded" explores how America's youth are increasingly subjected to sophisticated but ultimately predatory forms of corporate marketing and branding. While the social reproduction of labor has been defined by capitalist requirements for many years, Ms. Quart amply demonstrates that the co-optation of today's youth has deepened and intensified. For many, the immersion in consumerism is so all-encompassing that it threatens to corrupt and corrode their mental self-images and possibly inhibit their ability to function as enlightened citizens.

Ms. Quart shows that the marketing tactics used are often invasive and unscrupulous, amounting to a sort of "corporate pedophilia" whose aim is to grow the corporate bottom line at the expense of childhood itself. Indeed, the author explains that whole classes of products (such as sexually-provocative undergarments designed for pre-teen girls) are unapologetically marketed to ever-younger children, thereby accelerating the pace at which children develop, perceive and interact with their surroundings. Ms. Quart blasts the justifications used by marketers to defend such indefensible actions and alerts us to the moral vacuousness that lies at the heart of the corporate agenda.

Ms. Quart argues that our children bear unmistakable psychological, physical and financial scars from this assault. Media-induced anxiety leads boys to steroid abuse and girls to anorexia; social acceptance is garnered by the flaunting of expensive designer clothes and accessories; class status is predicated by admission to brand-name colleges; and so on. The end result is a hyper-competitive, anxious and debt-ridden generation of youths who collectively are getting locked into the cycle of labor and consumption at a significantly earlier age than their predecessors.

It may be true that Ms. Quart's work depends heavilly on observations drawn from the ranks of upper middle-class society, but she has impressively succeeded in describing a phenomenon that has largely eluded others. The reader is impressed by the author's ability to synthesize scholarly research, pop culture, business information, anecdotes and first-person interviews to make her case. In short, this is original and cutting-edge research that should give inquisitive readers much to ponder.

I recommend this book to parents of teenagers (like myself) who want to understand more about the brave new world their children are inhabiting as well as to teenagers who want to critically deconstruct and reclaim their branded selves.

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Seduction of America's Youth, February 19, 2003

By 

Mark D. Wolfinger (Evanston, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Branded: The Buying And Selling Of Teenagers (Hardcover)

Alissa Quart describes how America's youth have been successfully targeted with methods today's kids can't resist. In fact, sometimes it is the parents who encourage their children to become 'branded'.

The clothes they demand, the makeup they use, even the colleges they want to attend; all must be brand names. The hard sell is everywhere: magazine and TV ads are the most obvious, but the movies and music videos they watch, even the video games they play feature brand name items in glamorous settings. Our children succumb to the need to be like the movie stars and pop singers.

It is not enough to want to wear the same brands as the stars and models, they crave to be look-alikes. Thus, teenagers are demanding cosmetic surgeries as never before. Craving to be super thin, some resort to starving themselves (anorexia). The girls want liposection and bodily enhancements; the boys want to be more muscular and powerful. Dangerous medications and surgeries are comsumed in ever increasing numbers by our young generation.

This eye-opening book tells the story. No child is too young to be a target.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seduction of the Innocent, March 16, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Branded: The Buying And Selling Of Teenagers (Hardcover)

In accessible, often witty prose, Quart shows the corrupting effect that the conscienceless pursuit of profit by corporate marketers has on everything from young girls' body images or young boys'understandings of what it means to be masculine, to the complaisant administrations of public schools. "Seduction of the innocent" is not too strong a term to apply to the corporate behavior that Quart describes; though happily she also focuses on the ways in which many young people have begun to resist being "branded." As an account of the impact of corporatism on daily lives, this book belongs on the shelf next to Naomi Klein's No Logo. It will only not appeal to those who make a living exploiting young people; most others will find it a revelation.